A blog on politics and education, supporting socialist ideals and equality of opportunity. Against obscene wealth and inequality.

Sunday, 26 July 2015

Unpublished Observer letter on its Corbyn coverage

Rather than offering a detailed analysis of the policies and leadership qualities of all four Labour candidates, assessing their “solutions to some of the hardest questions of our time”, your paper favoured a one-sided attack on the left-wing contender, Jeremy Corbyn (If Jeremy Corbyn is the answer then Labour is asking the wrong question,19/0715). Cooper and Burnham got off lightly, despite the editorial, with its dubious comment that only Hunt and Umunna “seem fully to grasp the scale of the challenge”, and the main political articles all favouring the Blairite-based views of Liz Kendall. The “British notion of fairness” is seen as crucial, yet their proposals on issues such as rising inequality, decreasing social mobility, exploitation of private tenants, and tax avoidance were ignored.

Rawnsley`s jaundiced piece on Corbyn stood out for its anti-left prejudice, with the ridiculous “Lenin cap” getting a double mention, and the similarly twice-included 1983 “suicide note” manifesto getting full blame for the election defeat, despite the existence of the Labour-SDP split and the Falklands` effect (Why Labour is gravitating towards the Conservatives` dream candidate,19/07/15). With the “endorsement of the Trotskyites” and such like, it sounded more like the anti-Labour rant of a Telegraph editorial than a balanced, unbiased article from the respected Sunday newspaper of our choice. Rawnsley even reported how some New Labour bigwigs had quit politics, “to do something more rewarding with their lives”, failing to add the phrase, “in the private healthcare industry”!

The idea, that a left-leaning Labour party cannot win elections, is a product of the Tories` propaganda machine, as the right have clearly realised that as long as Labour stay in the centre ground they will pose little electoral threat. Rawnsley got it wrong: Kendall is the Tories` “dream candidate”!